Cousins Join Forces as Rosenblum & Reisman Law Firm

RICHARD J. ALLEY | Special to The Daily News

As the law firm of Rosenblum & Reisman celebrates its 15th year in business, it is with the knowledge and a sense of accomplishment that clients have been treated with the utmost respect, and that fellow lawyers and staff are treated as family. Indeed, the principals, Jeff Rosenblum and Marc Reisman, are first cousins.

The firm’s practice areas include personal injury, wrongful death, civil rights and criminal defense. The focus over the years, however, has been primarily on medical malpractice.

“I made it a point where I was going to take that area of law and let that be my strength,” Rosenblum said.

Law partners and first cousins Jeff Rosenblum and Marc Reisman, pictured above their office at Brinkley Plaza, formed the law firm Rosenblum & Reisman in 1998.

(Daily News/Andrew J. Breig)

In 2006, the largest medical malpractice verdict in the city at the time – $8.5 million – was won by Rosenblum & Reisman. The firm has been recognized by U.S. News & World Report as being one of the best law firms in the U.S.

The firm handles medical malpractice cases that are viewed as civil rights cases in which inmates are not given appropriate care in a prison setting, which can lead to suicide in confinement.

“We think it is absolutely atrocious that our jails and our prisons aren’t tending to people with mental health issues and are just putting them in a cell and not giving them the care they need,” Rosenblum said. “We’re one of the few firms – really, in the country, but certainly in the city – that handles suicide in confinement cases.”

Another niche developed as a spinoff of their core focus has been in the defense of professional golfers accused of using performance-enhancing drugs. In 2009, Doug Barron became the first PGA Tour player to be suspended for violating the organization’s drug policy.

“We represented Doug Barron. We sued the PGA Tour and (he) was allowed to take the substance they said he couldn’t take before," Rosenblum said. “That has resulted in me representing five or six PGA golfers.”

The most recent was Vijay Singh, suspended for the use of deer antler spray, a substance that contains insulin-like growth factor-1.

“I flew down to Ponte Vedra, Fla., and a few months later we got the Tour to say, ‘Never mind, we dismiss all the charges,’” Rosenblum said. “So that was a great hole in one, I guess would be the way to describe it.”

Reisman is proud of the work they do and honored that “we get a large percentage of our client base from referrals from other lawyers and from referrals from prior clients, people that have seen us work and trust us to represent their clients or their friends or their families.”

Both Rosenblum and Reisman brought impressive resumés into the new office back in 1998. Rosenblum graduated from The University of Tennessee College of Law, clerked under federal Judge Robert McRae, and later worked with Harris Shelton Hanover Walsh PLLC and Ballin, Ballin & Fishman PC. Reisman graduated from The University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law, clerked in the Tennessee Court of Appeals and Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals, and worked with the Causey & Caywood law firm.

The pair have skill sets that complement each other – Rosenblum is the self-professed “big picture guy” who enjoys getting up in front of a jury, while Reisman is “an unbelievable writer, he’s an unbelievable researcher,” said his cousin.

“Jeff and I talked about the possibility that someday we would go into practice together,” Reisman said. “I really felt that when we joined forces and got together, that we had a similar work ethic, and we felt like we complemented each other’s practices and that we would be successful; I’m proud of the evolution of our practice.”

The pairing of the two, along with attorneys Mark Mesler, Matthew May and Neely Thomas, have helped grow the firm to what it is today.

“When we take a case, we know we’re going to spend hundreds of hours on it, we’re going to spend all our resources on it,” Rosenblum said.

“We just consider every case to be important, and we don’t just go through the motions.”

The dream from the beginning, Rosenblum said, was to “have a boutique law firm that would focus on injury cases and would give people the time and attention that they deserved, would handle them as if every case was the million-dollar case that we believe they potentially can be, and that they would get integrity and preparation and great advocacy for individuals as opposed to the insurance companies.”